Here Are The Three Post-Birther Republican Conspiracy Theories

In the 1990s, if people told you about three men on television
spinning ever more complicated conspiracy theories about the
federal government, you’d assume they were talking
about an “X-Files”
spinoff. If you heard the same thing today, you’d be on solid
ground assuming they were talking about high-ranking members of
the Republican Party and the conservative movement.

Mainstream birtherism is, for the most part, dead (top Mitt
Romney surrogate Donald
Trump keeps hope alive, but President Obama’s birth place is
no longer an actual part
of the congressional agenda). Fears that the president of the
United States is a secret Kenyan may have faded, but newer,
bolder, conspiracies about the secret schemes at work in
Washington are taking hold.

Conspiracy theorizing is not a partisan activity — plenty of
progressives opposed to President George W. Bush believed
sinister agendas lurked behind the scenes in his administration.
But most of the outlandish claims never came from the top levels
of the Democratic Party.

A look over the new grassy knoll:

The White House Plot To Undermine The Second
Amendment

Underpinning much of the Republican focus on the federal Fast and
Furious operation is the very real belief that the Obama
administration purposely let
guns fall into the hands of criminals to be used in the Mexican
drug war. Proponents of this idea believe Democrats were seeking
a legislative avenue for stricter gun control.

Conservative gun owners have worried Obama
will be coming to take their firearms since the moment the
president took office. But as the Fast and Furious investigation
reached its zenith last week, with the House voting to hold
Attorney General Eric
Holder in contempt of Congress, top Republicans
like Rep.
Darrell Issa (CA) signed
onto aspects of the theory.

The White House Plot To Destroy Right-Wing Think
Tanks

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (KY) has been on a crusade
lately to protect Washington’s conservative intellectuals from
what he says is an obvious plan by top White House officials to
destroy some of their most beloved think tanks under the guise of
campaign finance reform.

Democrats, McConnell believes, want to force groups that spend on
political ads to disclose their donors so progressives can expose
supporters of conservative groups and shame them out of funding
the causes they care about. McConnell also says Obama’s White
House has shown a Nixon-like willingness to sic the IRS on its
political opponents, giving the conspiracy a real
cloak-and-dagger feel.

McConnell’s solution? Republicans must stand united against the
Democratic-sponsored Disclose Act, before it’s too late. But the
fear of campaign spending transparency has been a tough
sell for McConnell:

The Huffington Post noted:

But while McConnell’s speeches argued strongly against the
notion of more disclosure itself, transparency used to be the
tradeoff that conservatives would make in exchange for
eliminating limits on the donations that people could give.
McConnell has a long history of making this very argument. But
with the Supreme Court’s having wiped away many of the caps on
political giving, there is really no more need for him to make
that trade.

What led Chief Justice John Roberts to cast his vote with the
liberal wing of the Supreme Court, thus dashing the hopes — and
expectations — of conservatives everywhere? Some options, as
espoused by top Republicans:

These suggestions aren’t restricted to the conservative fringe —
the idea that outside forces somehow got to Roberts is being
espoused by top Republicans, including the one at the top of the
presidential ticket.

“Well, it gives the impression that the decision was made not
based upon constitutional foundation, but instead political
consideration about the relationship between the branches of
government,” Romney told CBS in
an interview broadcast
Thursday when asked about Roberts’ ruling. “But we won’t really
know the answers to those things until the justice himself speaks
out, maybe sometime in history.”

Read the original article on TPM. Copyright 2012. Follow TPM on Twitter.